prokopetz
David J Prokopetz
Social Justice Henchman; main website at prokopetz.net
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I thinks folks expressing incredulity at the quality of the writing and composition in Calvin and Hobbes are often missing the context that Bill Watterson is arguably the most influential sequential artist of his generation. Like, this is a guy who once told the editors of nationally syndicated newspapers to go fuck themselves when they wanted to mess with his panel layouts, and not only did he keep his job, he got his way. He could have had literally any gig he wanted, and he chose to be the Sunday funnies guy because that's what made him happy. He's basically the Weird Al of sequential art.
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Early cyberpunk has this tension between framing a well-argued skepticism of body modification rooted in concerns about bodily autonomy and corporate ownership of human bodies, and being really shitty about actual disabled people because it was predominantly written by able-bodied folks who knew fuck-all about disability advocacy and treated all that bodily autonomy stuff as a metaphor for the artist's loss of intellectual freedom under the corporate state.
I look at folks on this site pulling the whole "well ACTUALLY having cool robot arms would suck because they'd be based on proprietary technology which would be used to exploit you, and then the owners would stop supporting it and you'd be left to slowly die" routine while clearly intending it purely as an ideological gotcha against cartoons they don't like and neither understanding nor caring that they're literally just describing the daily life of anyone whose chronic medical condition is managed by patented drugs, and I'm thinking "wow, forty years and we haven't learned a damn thing".
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I read your post that contained the sentence "Fundamentally, the thing that was wrong with Lord Byron is that he was a poet" and I feel like I had an existential crisis as my mind tried to grapple with "the thing", singular, that was wrong with Lord Byron.
(With reference to this post here.)
It helps to understand that the idea of the "artistic temperament" – i.e., the notion that Artists are a specific, biologically distinct Type of Guy – was very much in vogue during the Regency. This is the era that spawned phrenology in its modern form, after all; such notions were going around! The idea that all of the various things that were wrong with Lord Byron were ultimately attributable to the singular cause of "being a poet" would have been viewed, at least by some, as perfectly plausible, at the time.
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(If you're wondering how this is kept managable in the context of a game as complex as a metroidvania, the framing device of Vision Soft Reset is that the entire planet you're standing on will explode in twenty real-time minutes, so you literally can't have a timeline branch that's more than twenty minutes deep. The actual game takes four to six hours to complete, but you have to use Time Fuckery™ to fit those four to six hours of play into a subjective twenty-minute span.)
Heya. Sorry to bother. Ya wouldn't happen to know some puzzle games that revolve around the player making multiple saves, and hopping between saves, wouldja?
Assuming this was prompted by my recent post on cheap metroidvanias, you might continue the theme and check out Vision Soft Reset. It's a time travel metroidvania where checkpoints function as save states, such that fast travelling returns you not only to where you last visited a given checkpoint, but also to when you last visited it.
This is what the fast travel interface looks like, for reference:
Functionally, it's keeping multiple save files as a core mechanic, with the wrinkle that certain very specific things are tracked globally across all saves – sort of like how some games have a layer of meta bullshit whereby actions in one save file can affect the state of other save files, except here it's just 100% diegetic.
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That's a common misunderstanding, on two fronts:
The time that a genre was named is not necessarily the same as the time that the genre in question started existing. In fact, this is rarely the case; genres in media are typically named many years after becoming a thing. Metoidvanias as an identifiable, recurring constellation of gameplay tropes had been around for over a decade before that constellation of tropes got a proper name.
The term "metroidvania", in its earliest usage, described Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and only Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as a pejorative coined by fans of the older Rondo of Blood style Castlevania titles, who felt that Symphony of the Night was taking the franchise in the wrong direction. Much like "walking simulator", "metroidvania" is a label that started out as an insult in the mouths of critics, only to be embraced as a proper name for a genre that formerly didn't have an agreed-upon label.
Metroid (1986) and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987) are often cited as the foundational texts of the metroidvania genre, not without cause, but they were really just a couple of the most prominent examples of a widespread trend. During the same period, we also had The Maze of Galious (1987), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987), Blaster Master (1988), Faxanadu (1987), Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989) – each of them foundational to the metroidvania formula in its own way – and many more besides, all tightly clustered in that specific three-year span from 1987 through 1989.
I know it's not always the case that there's a single ignition point for this sort of thing – sometimes an idea's time has simply come! – but I'm tempted to bet there was some obscure Japanese PC game released in 1984 or 1985 I've never heard of that sparked the trend, and I have no way of chasing that thread down because if any resources on the topic exist, they'd all be in Japanese.
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Metroid (1986) and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987) are often cited as the foundational texts of the metroidvania genre, not without cause, but they were really just a couple of the most prominent examples of a widespread trend. During the same period, we also had The Maze of Galious (1987), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987), Blaster Master (1988), Faxanadu (1987), Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989) – each of them foundational to the metroidvania formula in its own way – and many more besides, all tightly clustered in that specific three-year span from 1987 through 1989.
I know it's not always the case that there's a single ignition point for this sort of thing – sometimes an idea's time has simply come! – but I'm tempted to bet there was some obscure Japanese PC game released in 1984 or 1985 I've never heard of that sparked the trend, and I have no way of chasing that thread down because if any resources on the topic exist, they'd all be in Japanese.
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Do you happen to know of any games that are like Zelda II and are top down for world exploration and side scroller/ 2D platformed for dungeon exploration? I feel like I'm the only person who enjoyed that format.
The only really prominent example of the type that's come out recently is probably Phoenotopia: Awakening. It's actually a bit too true to its Zelda II inspirations in some respects; the negative reviews that cite stiff controls and player-hostile combat mechanics as the reasons for their thumbs-down aren't wrong. Still, if you can get past a combat system that hates you, everything else about it is excellent.
In terms of older titles, you've got stuff like Elliot Quest and Super Chibi Knight, though they each have their own issues; the former has numerous unpatched gameplay bugs, and the latter was designed by an eight-year-old (yes, seriously) – which is a fun gimmick, but it doesn't always result in the most well-considered gameplay structure.
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Heya. Sorry to bother. Ya wouldn't happen to know some puzzle games that revolve around the player making multiple saves, and hopping between saves, wouldja?
Assuming this was prompted by my recent post on cheap metroidvanias, you might continue the theme and check out Vision Soft Reset. It's a time travel metroidvania where checkpoints function as save states, such that fast travelling returns you not only to where you last visited a given checkpoint, but also to when you last visited it.
This is what the fast travel interface looks like, for reference:
Functionally, it's keeping multiple save files as a core mechanic, with the wrinkle that certain very specific things are tracked globally across all saves – sort of like how some games have a layer of meta bullshit whereby actions in one save file can affect the state of other save files, except here it's just 100% diegetic.
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Good call – that one didn't catch my eye because I already own every game it offers, but if there are at least two titles in it you're interested in and don't already have it fits the criteria.
Recently I've been wanting to play a metroidvania, and I realized I don't have that many in my backglog. I was looking through some of your game recs like the free games post which made me think to ask you (since you're a Metroidvania Person). So: I was wondering if you had any recommendations for metroidvanias? Ideally on the cheaper side (like, under $10).
Cheap metroidvanias which I'd actually recommend, eh? In the interest of keeping this list relatively short, I'm going to construe the term "metroidvania" narrowly and exclude anything which isn't a 2D side-scrolling platfomer. (i.e., so 3D exploration platformers, top down Zelda-likes, etc. are off the table.) I'll also warn you that I have a fairly high tolerance for jank, so maybe check the reviews first!
Anyway:
A Game with a Kitty 1 & Darkside Adventures*†
Alwa's Awakening^
Aquaria†
Axiom Verge 2^
Blue Rabbit
Dreaming Sarah
Eldritchvania*
Environmental Station Alpha
Ex Vitro*
Flynn: Son of Crimson^
forma.8
Frauki's Adventure!
Gato Roboto^
Grizzland
Guardian
Hunter's Legacy
IN THE DARK
Kalinur
Lorera*
Maya Star
Mech Chip
The Messenger^
Mini Ghost
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Moonlaw*
Mystik Belle^
Nyaruru Fishy Fight
Omega Strike
OUTBUDDIES DX^
Pankapu^
PSYCRON
qomp
Saira*†
Simona's Requiem
SJ-19 Learns To Love
Souldiers^
Spooky Ghosts Dot Com
Sun Wukong VS Robot
Super Skelemania
Tiny Dangerous Dungeons
Trash Quest
Treasure Hunter Man 2^†
Treasures of the Aegean^
The Vagrant^
Visual Out
Wenjia
Wild West Crops
William and Sly: Classic Collection*
Xenosis*
Zapling Bygone^
* free
^ on sale at the time of this posting; may not still be under $10 if you're viewing this post after the sale ends
† older title that's not 100% compatible with modern OSes, so you may need to do a lot of fiddling to get your gamepad working
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Recently I've been wanting to play a metroidvania, and I realized I don't have that many in my backglog. I was looking through some of your game recs like the free games post which made me think to ask you (since you're a Metroidvania Person). So: I was wondering if you had any recommendations for metroidvanias? Ideally on the cheaper side (like, under $10).
Cheap metroidvanias which I'd actually recommend, eh? In the interest of keeping this list relatively short, I'm going to construe the term "metroidvania" narrowly and exclude anything which isn't a 2D side-scrolling platfomer. (i.e., so 3D exploration platformers, top down Zelda-likes, etc. are off the table.) I'll also warn you that I have a fairly high tolerance for jank, so maybe check the reviews first!
Anyway:
A Game with a Kitty 1 & Darkside Adventures*†
Alwa's Awakening^
Aquaria†
Axiom Verge 2^
Blue Rabbit
Dreaming Sarah
Eldritchvania*
Environmental Station Alpha
Ex Vitro*
Flynn: Son of Crimson^
forma.8
Frauki's Adventure!
Gato Roboto^
Grizzland
Guardian
Hunter's Legacy
IN THE DARK
Kalinur
Lorera*
Maya Star
Mech Chip
The Messenger^
Mini Ghost
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Moonlaw*
Mystik Belle^
Nyaruru Fishy Fight
Omega Strike
OUTBUDDIES DX^
Pankapu^
PSYCRON
qomp
Saira*†
Simona's Requiem
SJ-19 Learns To Love
Souldiers^
Spooky Ghosts Dot Com
Sun Wukong VS Robot
Super Skelemania
Tiny Dangerous Dungeons
Trash Quest
Treasure Hunter Man 2^†
Treasures of the Aegean^
The Vagrant^
Visual Out
Wenjia
Wild West Crops
William and Sly: Classic Collection*
Xenosis*
Zapling Bygone^
* free
^ on sale at the time of this posting; may not still be under $10 if you're viewing this post after the sale ends
† older title that's not 100% compatible with modern OSes, so you may need to do a lot of fiddling to get your gamepad working
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Email from a professional networking site I've never heard of: "Hey, do you recognise the person in this photo? If so, please follow this easily trackable link and leave a comment on their profile!"
The photo: [selfie of a guy I sat next to every day for four years in high school, in a context which suggests it was scraped from personal social media rather than deliberately posted as a professional profile photo]
Me: "No, officer, I've never seen this man in my life."
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Well, yeah. That's why she received the unusual education which laid the foundation for her later discoveries in the first place. Her mother, Lady Byron, firmly believed three things:
It was her responsibility as a mother to ensure that Ada didn't turn out like her father;
Fundamentally, the thing that was wrong with Lord Byron is that he was a poet; and
The opposite of poetry is math.
Ada Lovelace's biography handily illustrates how well this theory worked out in practice.
Wrong: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because she was Lord Byron's daughter.
Right: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because that was the closest you could get in 1850 to being a Super Mario 64 speedrunner.
#history#computers#computer science#ada lovelace#memes#gaming#video games#super mario 64#speedrunning
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Scrolling your dash like "wow, that's a really beautiful piece of art – a genuinely insightful and skilfully executed visual character study" *immediately checks the artist's bio for a Twitter or Cohost link in case there's a version with their dick out*
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#which excrucian splat would king charles be? #strategist? (via @jaymerge855)
If I were basing it on the symbolism of this painting in particular, I'd probably go with Deceiver, with the Pseudoestate "The Legacy of Charles Windsor".
I swear Charles III's regnal portrait looks like something out of one of those edgy urban fantasy RPGs from the 1990s where you play as, like, evil gods or whatever. You'd be thumbing through the character creation chapter and happen upon a writeup of a splat called "the World-Breakers" or some shit, and on the facing page you'd see this:
#politics#uk politics#current events#british monarchy#charles iii#gaming#tabletop roleplaying#tabletop rpgs#nobilis#glitch#swearing
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Imagine extrapolating "oh my God" > "oh my gods" to other popular Christian and Christian-adjacent oaths. Good lords. Jesuses Christ.
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Wrong: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because she was Lord Byron's daughter.
Right: Ada Lovelace invented computer science and immediately tried to use it to cheat at gambling because that was the closest you could get in 1850 to being a Super Mario 64 speedrunner.
#history#computers#computer science#ada lovelace#memes#gaming#video games#super mario 64#speedrunning
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This is the illustration attached to an NPC profile for a guy whose first name is "The". You look up his stats and there's just a full-page writeup of a special ability called "Hand of Rot and Ruin". The butterfly represents the frailty of mortal life before the majesty of the whatever.
I swear Charles III's regnal portrait looks like something out of one of those edgy urban fantasy RPGs from the 1990s where you play as, like, evil gods or whatever. You'd be thumbing through the character creation chapter and happen upon a writeup of a splat called "the World-Breakers" or some shit, and on the facing page you'd see this:
#politics#uk politics#current events#british monarchy#charles iii#gaming#tabletop roleplaying#tabletop rpgs#swearing
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